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County discusses road work, bridges

PRINCETON – The Bureau County Board has approved the 2014 County Highway Maintenance Program appropriation of $826,835 from the county’s Motor Fuel Tax allotment.

At Tuesday’s county board meeting, Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Sondgeroth presented the Fiscal Year 2014 County Highway Maintenance Program resolution, which was unanimously approved by the board.

The county board also approved motions from Sondgeroth to go out for preliminary engineering services to replace two county bridges. The first project is to replace the bridge structure carrying County Highway 19, also known as 2750 East Street, over a branch of the East Bureau Creek. The preliminary engineering services was approved by the board at a cost not to exceed $$49,410.

The second bridge project motion was to approve going out for preliminary engineering services to replace a bridge structure carrying Highway 24, also known as 1200 North Avenue, over a branch of Pond Creek. The board approved that motion for those preliminary engineering services, at a cost not to exceed $53,926.

Sondgeroth also presented a motion setting the county highway engineer’s annual salary at $103,500, which is 100 percent of the recommended salary determined each year by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The cost of the salary is split 50/50 by the county and the state. The board approved that motion as well.

In other business at Tuesday’s meeting, Buildings and Grounds Committee Chairman Kristi Warren gave an update on projects at the courthouse and county jail.

Warren said JB Contracting of LaSalle has started the grounding work on the communication tower at the county jail. The work was needed to provide proper grounding work to help prevent lightning strikes on the jail’s communication system. The tower was struck by lightning four times in the last two years.

While in Princeton, the company has also agreed to repair the courthouse tower as well, at a cost of $2,030, Warren said. The county board agreed to go forward with the courthouse tower project.

Concerning the county’s ongoing communications radio upgrade, Warren said the final punch list is almost completed to the $250,000 project, with the exception of a logging recorder which has been ordered and will be installed as soon as it arrives. There are also vehicular antennae licenses, which might take another few months to receive. Otherwise the punch list has worked itself down to almost nothing, Warren said.

As reported earlier in the Bureau County Republican, the county has been working with consultant Jim Eatock on the project which has included all new radios and a new computer system for the correctional officers at the county jail and for the courthouse security officers, as well as a new repeater, antennae and other equipment on the metal communication tower at the jail. The upgrade has also included approximately 21 mobile radios for the department’s vehicles, 21 portable radios for deputies, plus some spare radios for any needed replacements if radios were lost, stolen or needed repaired.